An Old Celtic Tale
by trustpixiedust
Summary: Seven years ago, Emma Swan ran into a strange man on the beach. Ever since then, she tried to forget the experience. But when her two best friends insist that she come with them on a trip to the ocean, she is inclined to go with them. When she again finds herself on the same beach, things start to happen. Can this handsome stranger be the same man from before? Captain Swan AU.


**Hello readers!**

**I must say, my muse pretty much jumped out of nowhere with this story and ran away with it. I already have most of the plot line figured out, so it will probably be updated pretty regularly.**

**I know! I know! I should be working on Soulmates, but my muse got a little trigger happy with this story. I hope to get an update of Soulmates up by tomorrow, so, never fear!**

**I do not own the characters of Once Upon a Time, I'm just borrowing them for my own enjoyment.**

**ALSO, if any of you happen to be well versed in Celtic legends, PLEASE do not give anything away if you already know the story! I want to surprise the readers! :) Thank you!**

**This is sort of a prologue to the story, so it's more of a background that explains some things that will be important to the plot. **

**Please enjoy! Review and tell me what you think!**

* * *

"Are you sure?" a voice whispers. Emma edges closer to the corner of the door, trying to hear the conversation between her two foster parents.

"I'm sure. I even took the test two times to be safe," a different voice says.

"Oh honey that's wonderful! I can't believe we're going to have a baby! After all those times we tried, and we can finally have one of our own!" the two voices mix together in joyful laughter. Emma bites at her lip, still leaning against the doorframe just out of view.

"What will we tell Emma?" one of the voices says after a few seconds.

"We'll have to put her back in the system…"

"Aurora! She's thirteen!"

"I know, I know. But Phillip, we just don't have enough money to support two kids, it's just not possible."

Emma was shaking and trying so hard not to burst in on her foster parents and demand why they would do such a thing to her. She'd been with them for almost three years, and it was the happiest three years of her life. It was the longest she had been out of the foster system, and no matter how hard she tried to stop, she'd always hoped that she could stay with them.

"We'll tell her tomorrow, I don't think she could bear hearing the news on her birthday," one of the voices whispers and cuts into Emma's thoughts. She takes a deep breath and walks quietly past the crack in the door. A few tense seconds later she was out of the house and running.

Just a few hours ago she had been sitting at the table, a big cake in front of her with thirteen big candles in the frosting. She had been smiling and laughing with her foster parents as they told her to make a wish. Emma had paused, thinking of what she could wish for. She thought of how happy she had been here with the Swans, and wished that nothing would change. And now it seems like candle wishes can't help the lost girl. Not little Emma Swan, the girl who was abandoned on the side of the road and stuck in the foster system, being passed around from parent to parent. Abusive ones, kind ones, ones that used her for money, and ones that couldn't care less about her.

Soon Emma's feet weren't striking the pavement anymore, and she was running on soft sand. The Swans lived about a five minutes jog from the ocean in a little cottage that overlooked the beach. Emma continued to run along the sand, but as she went she kicked off her flip flops and pulled up her dress. She hated wearing dresses, but since it was her birthday, Aurora had insisted.

With each stride she came closer to the crashing waves, and soon the water was washing up around her ankles. Her green eyes slowly fill up with moisture as her thoughts again return to the conversation she had just heard. After everything she had been through, she had so hoped that this could be her family. That she could finally be the princess that Phillip called her, and she could get a happily ever after.

"Emma Swan, the lost girl," she whispers, but only the crashing of the waves answer her. The tide was coming in, and the water was up to her knees. She shivers from the cold water and the breeze, but she didn't care. "I'm not even Emma _Swan_ anymore…" With those words, her tears spill over, and fall from her cheeks into the sea.

Sobs begin to shake her small frame, and it takes all her strength to remain standing. Her hands form into fists and the move up to wipe at her wet eyes. Her dress drops from her hands, and the bottom of it trails along the top of the water.

"Ugly Emma duckling, that's what I am," she whispers, and finally her muscles give out and she falls on her knees in the water. That was the nickname that the kids at her school gave her.

_"Emma Swan? What kind of name is that? Swans are supposed to be beautiful. You sure aren't, you're more like an ugly duckling. Ugly Emma duckling." _Her classmates had jeered at her, but Emma ignored them. She was good at shoving her feelings away and keeping them bottled up. But this time it was too much. Why couldn't she just be wanted?

More tears spilled from her eyes and fell into the ocean, creating little ripples out into the current. Emma was shivering hard, from both her cries and the cold water. She sniffed and tried to reign her emotions back in. What if Aurora and Phillip came looking and they found her like this? They couldn't know that she had heard them.

"It's just not fair," she says to the waves, trailing a hand in the water.

"What's not fair?" a voice says, startling Emma up onto her feet. She looks around on the beach, but there was no one there.

"Hello?" she calls, feeling kind of stupid to be talking with no one around.

"Hello," the voice replies. Emma glances around again, but she still couldn't see anyone.

"I'm going crazy," she whispers to herself, and picking up her soaked dress, moves to walk back to the cottage.

"You're not crazy," the voice says again. Emma whirls around and faces the ocean again. And then, suddenly, there was a man sitting farther down in the waves, the water coming up to his shoulders.

"Who are you?" Emma cries out, stepping even farther out of the water. The man raises up his hands out of the water in a calming gesture.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you," he says softly, and amazingly, Emma can still hear him over the waves.

"Who are you?" Emma repeats, staring hard at the man. He didn't seem very familiar, so it was no one she'd seen before in town.

"I'm no one of consequence," he replies, waving his hand in the air, "But the better question is, why were you crying?" Emma takes another step back in the wet sand. The man didn't seem to be moving any closer, so she felt somewhat safe. Her biggest question was why he was just floating along in the ocean.

"Why should I tell you?" she says, her fingers digging even deeper into the wet fabric of her dress.

"You're shivering," the man says, avoiding her question. His eyes stare hard at her and take in her small, shivering frame.

"Well, I was just sitting in the ocean," Emma replies, lifting her chin a little. The man's mouth twitches up at the corner and his eyes sparkle.

"You need to warm up, lass," he says, pointing back up at the Swan's cottage.

"But what about you?" Emma's words rip themselves out of her throat, and she blushes. She didn't mean to say that.

"I'll be fine," the stranger says, "Just go on back up there and warm yourself up."

Emma turns away from the ocean and takes a few shaky steps up towards the cottage. She pauses, and then turns back to see the stranger still there, watching her.

"Will I see you again?" she calls. He smiles, making the blush come up on Emma's cheeks again.

"No doubt you will lass," he calls. Emma can hear the faint hint of a lie in his tone, and that makes her take a few steps toward him again.

"I can tell when people are lying!" she yells to him, and his smile falters.

"I will see you again," he says firmly, and this time it rings true in Emma's ears. She opens her mouth to reply, but a yell cuts her off.

"Emma! Emma what are you doing! You're soaking!" Aurora calls, running down the hill towards her foster daughter.

"Aurora, I'm fine!" Emma yells back, giving her foster mother a pause. This was the first time in a while that she hadn't called her Mom.

Emma turns back to the ocean, intending to say goodbye to the stranger, there was nothing there. Her eyes searched the waves, but there was only drifting seaweed, not a mop of dark hair.

"Did you see the man?" she asks when Aurora comes close to her. Her foster mom gives a start and glances around, looking for a strange man. But again, there was no one there.

"Come on honey, you're freezing," she says, nudging Emma towards the house. Aurora looks back over the ocean again and shakes away the fear she was feeling. Emma had to have imagined it.

The next morning, Emma woke up to a pounding knock on the cottage door. She pulled herself out of her tangled sheets and went to open the door. A woman with a fake smile plastered to her face looked down at her.

"Hi, you must be Emma. I'm Cora, and I'm here to take you to a new home," the woman says, patting her red coat impatiently.

"Emma? Who's at the door?" Phillip's voice echoes from inside the cottage, and Emma steps back from the door to let him see the woman.

"What are you doing here? You weren't supposed to come until tomorrow," he says, the color draining from his face.

"Well, I'm on a schedule here, and I must pick up Miss Swan today," she says, extending her manicured hand to the little girl. "Go on darling, go pack up your things."

Emma went back to her room and started shoving her clothes into an old suitcase. She wipes away at a few stray tears, and angrily shoves her new birthday presents in the case. After a few minutes, she snaps it closed and drags it out to the living room. Her foster parents were there, arguing with Cora.

"Emma darling, you don't have to go just yet, we haven't said goodbye," Aurora says when she sees the girl with her suitcase.

"Goodbye Aurora. Goodbye Phillip," Emma says woodenly, moving past them and out the door. She climbs into the waiting car, slamming the door behind her. Aurora and Phillip watch with devastated faces as the car drives away.

"Say goodbye to the sea darling, you won't be seeing it for a while," Cora says from the front seat. Emma stares out the window at the ocean as it gets farther and farther away. She wipes away at a few stray tears and shoves away her feelings. This she knew how to do. Say goodbye to the old family, and say hello to the orphanage and the feeling of abandonment.

Emma stares at the ocean until it finally disappeared behind the hills. She leans her head back against the headrest and makes a promise to herself to forget everything about the last three years of her life. The Swans. The ocean. Her happy feelings. And most of all, the strange man from the ocean that somehow made her feel safe.

The car continued to drive away from the coast, taking Emma far away. And although she vowed to never return to that place, something would bring her back, seven years later.


End file.
